Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Engineer Issues Designer responses
I would like to see a Rancor droid, which would basically be a Rancor, but a DE would build it. To cheapen development, just use the creature's model, but color it in purple or something. Being that bugs have reduced droids to crappy pets, why not just give us a good pet instead. I mean, uh,good droid.
Or how about a James Cameron designed droid instead. It could say "HASTA LA VISTA, BABY", and run for governor of Naboo. I say it gets a minigun. It would be sooooo cool.
No no no wait. Better idea. Completely CRAZY, but hear me out. A little droid that rolls around and is useful for just about everything. I mean, it could open locked doors, reprogram computers, find out where the tractor beam controls are, shut down garbage compactors, locate imprisoned diplomats, program moisture vaporators, shoot lightsabers out ofit's head, fly through the air, zap tiny little rodent-like creatures with a stun gun, record and playback home movies in 3-D, tell blatant lies, and of course weld other droids heads and legs back on. Because everybody knows there's ALWAYS some wacky droid getting his head knocked off somehow. With absolutely no memory of the past. And somehow deeply involved with every single plot in any given story.
Hmm... Or maybe... Nah. Well, there's this otheroriginal idea I had. What about a droid that says "ROGER ROGER", carries a blaster, and can actually kill something besides a half-dead Paralope. I saw something like that once in movie. You could have an advanced version that has a green stripe on it's head. It would be even cooler, say if you could build a whole bunch of them and have a little droid army. Or droid platoon, whatever. Cripes I'll take a squad. As long as they could kill more than a paralope.
sadaharu
- DE /corbantis -
- master of pressing F9, enter, double click, double click, double click, enter, enter, enter, F10, enter, double click, double click, double click, enter, enter, enter, F11, enter, double click, double click, double click, enter, enter, enter, F11, enter, double click, ... JOY! Just four more hours of this and I can build an even cooler useless droid!
For Combat Droids:
Definately:
-Droideka's (no wussy ones, very very high skill to make). (BluePrints4)
(Droideka ADV - Master skill)
-HailfireDroid (Packs a punch with missles, could use Commando Launcher pistol effect for missles) (BP3)
(Hailfire ADV - BP4)
-Super Battle Droids (Better than Normal Battledroids, Higher skill to make than the normal kind) (BP2)
(Super Battle Droid ADV - BP3)
-Battle Droids (Not as powerful as Droideka's, moderate skill to make, can carry different rifles made by weaponsmith? Similar in stats to current probot. Useless almost, but good for support if used right.) (BP1)
(Battle Droid ADV - BP2)
***Also another idea..... how about we scrap the useless refinement tree (everyone does it last when grinding b/c its pointless), and use that as the Combat Droid tree. Put the +points from the refinement tree into the Construction tree where they belong! And give DE's Droid building of +100 instead of the bad +55 max or such. And experimentation points are few to, need to double those and make them like Artisans Experimentation points at max).I mean it would give another good tree to the DE class w/o sacrificing anything!
/Bites Q-3PO on the leg to get his attention.
First and foremost the current bugs in the DE profession need to be fixed. Many modules and droids don't work properly.
As for combat droids 3 to 5 more chasis would be nice for adding a visual variety. The top combat droid should at least measure up to the AT-ST that any imperial can get, even without the slightest bit of combat.
To provide variety on the droid statistics front, three versions of each droid would make a nice framework to build on. An offensive unit with high damage and lowHAM and armor, a defensive unit with high HAM and armor but low damage, and a balanced unit. Droids could be further customized via weapon type and damage type. There are at least 7 weapon types (pistol, rifle, carbine, polearm, sword, heavy sword, and unarmed) plus a few odd types (granade, flamethrower, et.al.) that would make good options for combat droid types. Allowing other damage types than kinetic or energy (such as acid or heat) would further up the number of combat droid permutations. Having Weaponsmiths involved in this might not be a bad idea.
Non-combat droids probably have more potential than the combat droids do. Here is a list of ideas I've seen posted all over, and a few of my own.
Data storage- why not let the droids hold missions? One or two extra per character (not per droid) shouldn't be too much.
Harvester management- allow for droids to pick up resources from harvesters and return them to a specified location, pay harvester maintinence, and transfer power. Each of these could be a seperate module or droid.
Delivery- droids capable of running deliveries. The droid seeks out the target and when there allows the owner to trade with the target as normal. Advanced versions could work interplanitary.
Messanger- Along the lines of delivery except data, waypoints and possibly missions could be sent.
Creature pens- droids that not only store creatures but also slightly increase healing rate. Alternitivly these could be used to deliver creatures long distance.
Vendor droids- instead of merchants paying an upkeep on a vendor droid they could buy one from a DE for an up front cost.
Skill droids- droids capable of performing basic skills such as entertain, medic, repair, slicing, ect. The droid should be less effective at the job than a novice in that profession. These would be primarily an option when no one of the needed profession is available.
Assistant droids- droids that give skill bonuses. Perhaps these could even work the way skill items work for clothing, and either use the Bio-Engineer items or ones specially crafted by DE.
Entertainment centers- there are droid modules that function as mobile medical centers, how about mobile cantinas?
Robo-hack- with vehicles coming up sooner or later, droid drivers would make a nice addition. Give the droid a waypoint and it drives you there. Pilot droids could be added with the space expansion (and finally let those astromechs actually do what they're designed to).
In general, any activity that players find time consuming or boring could be done ,or at least assisted, by a droid. You know, the sorts of things automation is used for in real life. 
Droid Engineers could also use an expanded capacaty to store droids and an increased number of active droids, much in the way Creature Handlers work. It would also be nice if everyone could eventually earn the ability to call a second droid out. This could possibly be a reward for entering an Elite or Hybid class for the first time, or for Mastering one, or possibly as a faction reward or bonus for high faction ranking.
In closing, fixing the bugs with the features currently in game should be the highest priority!
Guess these were forgotten in the "NEW DE Improvement Plan" Oct 23, 2003.
Why does this seem like more of the same to me? Anyone else having deja vu?
"Ok, tell us what you think?" for the 32479234792347892348934 time.
GIVE MDE DROIDEKAS!
It's just too bad none of the actual issues have changed.
Look at the date of the original post 6-25...
I call NECROPOST!
Kamayyk
Master Droid Engineer
Master Artisan
Because with all the talk about what they're going to do to fix droid engineering, it's not like these issues have not been present since before the game was released to the public.
It was, however, seen as too controversial a thing, and my post was deleted.
I know, I know, it was inflammatory because I pointed out that these old issues haven't been fixed... But I still think it was a valid post, personally.
First off, I don't really care about another community manager. The one we have, Thunderheart, doesn't have anything to tell us anyway. I would much rather have another developer so that we won't continue to be shoved to the bottom of the stack because GreenMarine is busy adding color options to armor.
1 - Droid Uniqueness and Usefulness -
I am so sick of you guys asking us over and over again what kind of droids we want and what droid functions we want. How many times have you told us that you are listening and reading our posts and gathering information? We've already answered this question.
2 - Working Modules -
You only answered half of that issue, and it happens to be the minor part. What are you going to do about the way modules work (and don't work) right now? You totally dodged the issue and gave us a non-answer here.
3 -Usage Experience and Master Experience -
You said "change" the Usage Experience. Do we have any kind of Usage Experience now? Your statement implies that we do, so I'd like to know what it is.
4 - Variation is Combat Droids -
I want to see an R2-Rancor2 combat droid with 10,000 HAM, 80% resists, a couple hundred damage, that can tank just about anything in the game so that I can solo any group-combat mob. I guess you better put a fur coat on it so that the dev team will like it. But if that doesn't work, I would suggest that you read all the flippin posts on this board that answers that question already!!!!
5 - Droid Repair Issues -
Do you mean "add" a repair kit, or "fix" the repair kit.
6 - Experimentation On Droids -
Great, thanks. Doesn't do much good with all the artifical limitations you've put on our work. I still can't make a Probot with more than 820 HAM and 50 damage.
I'm sorry if I sound bitter, but I am so frustrated with this profession and this game in general.
Imagine that you order a pizza from the local delivery place. Now imagine that after 6 months it still hasn't arrived. And every time you try to call them to ask about your pizza, they respond by asking you what kind of pizza you wanted. And of course, you've already payed for the pizza.